April 2010

April 27, 2010

You know how in the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind Richard Dreyfuss joyfully makes contact with aliens who arrive on earth, even agreeing to go with them on their spaceship? Well super scientist Stephen Hawking says humans should stay home.

Times Online reports that Hawking, in his new Discovery Channel documentary, Into the Universe says, though he believes there are definitely other life forms in the universe, humans should think twice about contacting them:

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Hawking goes on to say that intelligent alien life that could travel would most likely be nomads who wouldn't so much want to shake our hands as exploit our planet for its natural riches and move on. If we got in the way of that, we'd be, shall we say, eradicated or enslaved.

With all due respect to Mr. Hawking, who didn't know that!? All you need to do is go to the movies to understand that aliens mean us no good.

Hawking leans more toward our first contact being like the movie Independence Day or ABC's resurrection of V and its sinister aliens who want something from us we can't afford to give. Maybe they have that cookbook from the Twilight Zone, To Serve Man.

So here in no particular order are 10 films that prove Mr. Hawking knows exactly what he's talking about:

Released in 2008, Blessed is the Match tells the story of Hungarian Jew Hannah Senesh, who volunteered in 1944, with a small band of Palestinian Jews, to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe on a mission to make contact with resistance fighters and attempt to rescue Jews.

The film, which is narrated by actress Joan Allen, was released on DVD on April 13th and airs on PBS's series "Independent Lens" this week (check your local listings for dates).

Born to a wealthy Hungarian family, Senesh lived a privileged life as the daughter of a well-known playwright until he died of a heart attack at 33. As a teenager, Senesh experienced anti-Semitism firsthand, and dreamed of moving to Palestine and helping to build an independent Jewish state.

She'd accomplished that goal when WWII broke out, and at the age of 22, decided she needed to be part of the fight.

April 16, 2010

When it was funny, it was really funny and when it was sweet and touching, it was sincere.

"Ugly Betty" ended its series run this week and it did it on a high note. Betty took an amazing magazine job in London, said goodbye to her friends and former enemies at Mode, opened herself to the possibility of a relationship with Daniel and confidently looked toward the future.

Here are 10 things I''ll miss about the show:

America Ferrera: The lovely, sweet, marvelous, wonderful America Ferrera who gave Betty such heart. This girl's a star. We're gonna see her again and soon.

Vanessa Williams: She was the evil, yet sometimes vulnerable Wilhelmina Slater. Her relationship with Marc, her feud with Claire Meade, her attempts to forge a relationship with her daughter: all great stuff. And every line said with delicious glee.

Claire Meade: Played by veteran soap actress Judith Light, I still laugh when I think of her on the run after escaping from jail with her cellmate, Yoga. They hid out in the Hamptons. I laughed 'til my sides hurt.

Marc and Amanda: So shallow, so superficial, so, so...you name it! This gruesome twosome started out as Betty's worst enemies but even they couldn't resist the Betty Suarez charm. In the process they also grew up.

The Suarez Family: They were the heart and conscience of the show and how nice was it to see a normal TV Latino family? And they were funny. How about that trip back to Mexico to visit the wacky relatives? And the psycho immigration social worker who had a crush on Ignacio?

Daniel Meade: From playboy to Betty's boy! Betty always kept Daniel grounded and it wasn't until the very end that he realized just how important she was in his life.

Suzuki St. Pierre: the host of a tabloid fashion show that was all gossip, gossip and more gossip. Who could forget his delicious commentary when a video of Wilhelmina Slater shoving an old woman out of a taxi (the very hot right now Betty White) went viral on the internet. Suzuki's big secret? When he wasn't his flamboyant self on the air, he was a normal husband living in the suburbs.

The Sets and Costumes: One reason this show worked so well was because it never took itself too seriously. The wonderfully kitschy sets and outfits, straight out of 60's pop art mixed with visions from an Andy Warhol nightmare, were funny set pieces that made the Mode offices live and breathe.

The Soap Opera-ness of It All: From Daniel's "dead" brother who came back as a live sister to Claire's long lost son, this show reveled in the soapy-ness of life.

The Reality of It All: But despite the soapy-ness, they did reality well too. Like when Justin's father was killed in a store robbery and Hilda fantasized he was still alive. Or when Betty had to let Henry go so he could be with his son.

April 12, 2010

If you missed the excellent, groundbreaking series "Planet Earth" here's your chance to catch up. The entire 11 part BBC Earth series is now available for purchase on iTunes, but you can download the first episode for free until April 26th.

The series is especially beautiful if you can watch it in HD and shows some of the most incredible scenes of nature ever captured on video.

Here's a little sampling: a video of baby polar bears coming out to see the world for the first time.

After watching even just the first episode of this series, it becomes clear why it's so important for all of us to work harder to preserve our environment.

So read on to find out why Heard thinks James Cameron's "a jerk," why he was pulling for Kathryn Bigelow to win the Best Director Oscar, how Johnny Depp took him to get his first tattoo, and why seeing "Avatar" was one of his worst movie experiences.

We started off talking about Mickey Rourke and playing the Hollywood game.

April 05, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing author Christopher Heard, whose new book, "Kiefer Sutherland, Living Dangerously" is a bio of "24's" Jack Bauer himself, actor Kiefer Sutherland.

What a funny and interesting man!

I mean Heard, not Sutherland--though Sutherland is funny and interesting too, I just didn't get to talk to him on the phone about his book, movies, celebrities and Hollywood fame and fortune.

"Living Dangerously" covers Sutherland's early acting success, his notorious drunken binges, and how acting didn't come from his famous father,Donald Sutherland, but from his Canadian actress mother, Shirley Douglas.

Even though it was recently announced that this will be "24's" last season, if you like celeb bios and you're a Kiefer fan, you'll like this book. It's a quick read and the stuff about Sutherland's time on the rodeo circuit when roles in Hollywood had dried up, give a unique insight into a talented actor with a wild streak.

April 03, 2010

Actors like Tom Hanks need to be really careful when it comes to commenting on weighty subjects like war and peace. That's because Hanks is not only very talented but also well liked, and why throw away all that goodwill on a few loose comments?

First some background. HBO's "The Pacific" is a WWII mini-series produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg that acts as a companion piece to their critically acclaimed HBO series "Band of Brothers." Just as "Band of Brothers" dealt with the war in Europe, "The Pacific," as you can probably tell from the title, deals with the horrors of the war in the Pacific.

It stars James Badge Dale, Jon Seda, Joe Mazzello and Ashton Holmes as four real young men who shipped out to tiny islands in the Pacific in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The first three episodes have been gritty and compelling, and during all those flying bullets, I kept being reminded of two things:

1) That, as I said when I wrote about "Saving Private Ryan" in a Memorial Day post two years ago, it's impossible for me to imagine how you go back to a "normal" life after experiencing the unspeakable destruction on the battlefield

2) That so much of war in those days was a uniquely male experience that women couldn't fully understand.

I like what I've seen of "The Pacific" so far, and if you want to gain a small understanding of what it's like to be in battle, I highly recommend it.

Now, back to Tom Hanks. He got himself into trouble a couple of weeks ago when in a Time Magazine cover story he seemingly implied that WWII, and today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had more to do with racism than they had to do with: